WTF fuel gauge suddenly reversed operation: A live trip report

[alman72]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

oofff

that means bad things. if the vac pump seized it probably took out the timing belt.

or worse...the oil pump wasn't being driven and it went pop in a real bad way.

i'm going to get on a bit of a soap box here with diesels....

been around them pretty much my whole life. the ones i grew up with were a keep the air, fuel and oil clean and they pretty much were bulletproof.

the last diesel (besides agricultural equipment) i ran daily was a 89 jetta. that said, diesels imho are a false economy for those that don't really need them.

i always love the argument they are cheap to run. they are not. one sniff of water in the fuel is buckets of $$

hate to see it end this way.

i'm in the middle of a roosa master injection pump rebuild for the skid steer. every fucking time i touch a diesel i feel like the chimney sweep from mary poppins and despite a 2 hour shower i somehow manage to smell like a muffler on a peterbuilt for a week.

hard to get some stanky for the hang low when you smell like an old boot
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[vwwestyman]

We're all together at the friend's house. Bus is here too.

I'll write more later when I have a chance to get on my laptop.

Meanwhile, a cute pic of Silas unpacking for the night.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[aeromech]

Did the tow truck driver allow you to ride with him in his truck? I don’t think they do around here anymore (Covid)
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Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[vwwestyman]

Katherine ordered Chinese food. This was my fortune.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[Abscate]

Soon Under Bus And Renovating Undersides
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.ssS!

[skills@eurocarsplus]

jeez

china can even fuck up a vacation
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[TDCTDI]

Yeah, if the pump was pushed up then it disengaged the oil pump drive…
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[vwwestyman]

[TDCTDI]

Intermediate shaft turns the vacuum pump, slot I bottom of vacuum pump drives oil pump.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[vwwestyman]

Here's what happened today.

Katherine was driving and I was in the back with baby Silas entertaining him. The engine suddenly died. I noted billowing smoke and also black exhaust coming out the tail pipe (separately) and shouted for her to pull over. We were in the center lane with all this smoke and the flashers on, and dumbasses still insisted on passing us rather than letting us get over.

Anyway, as we got to the shoulder, there was what seemed like a bunch of smoke coming out of the vents. Afraid of fire, I got Silas out of the car seat as quick as possible. Thankfully, the smoke quit pretty fast and there was no actual fire.

But I did note a lot of fluid pouring out. I figured one of the fuel filters had broken or come loose or something. So I was momentarily pissed that had happened, but quickly noticed that it was pink. So antifreeze. That's when I knew it was real bad. Meanwhile, it was raining and Katherine stepped in fire ants.

I was having issues getting ahold of AAA, and in the mean time a couple in an S-10 (thankfully the model with the little jump seat in the back) stopped to help. They offered to take us up to the Wal-Mart that was at the exit about a mile up and we accepted.

Silas' car seat went in the front of the truck, the wife drove, and the man, myself and Katherine jammed into the back.

As they drove, the guy started telling us how his probation (or maybe parole?) officer wouldn't like him being around kids. And started telling about how in Alabama you get a felony for writing a check over $500 and something about the (equivalent of) Children's Services was involved and they'd been living in the truck.

That's when I started developing a plan of what I'd do if the wife didn't exit...

Thankfully she did, and pulled up to the Wal-Mart. Katherine wisely told me to not get out of the truck until she'd gotten Silas out. It took a tense couple minutes for the wife to get the little half-door open because the latch was broken or something. We were so jammed in the back seat, it was easy to make a show of how it was difficult to get out and take some time. (I felt it would be rude to just refuse to get out.)

The man did insist on helping get a dry "buggy" (that's what they call shopping carts in the south) and when we offered to give them some money or buy them lunch or something he declined.

So even though he kinda freaked us out with the felony stuff, in the end they were kind and helpful and their help was much appreciated.

Inside Wal-Mart, we tried to start looking for trailers to rent and all that, but didn't get anywhere due to places being closed and relative difficulty of doing it on cell phones combined with being somewhat shell-shocked and also exhausted. Katherine got ahold of her friend who we were on the way to visit and lived about 45 minutes away from where we were. Because it was a little quieter, we were making these phone calls at the edge of the Vision Center in the Wal-Mart, and the lady working there overheard and brought us some chairs to use.

I finally was able to get AAA tracked down (that took multiple phone calls for a variety of reasons) and we walked over to the Wendy's that was across the parking lot to get lunch and wait for the friend to arrive. Their dining room was closed, but when the manager who came to the door heard our plight, she let us in. They were even concerned about the AC being too cold for the baby!

Meanwhile, a person from AAA called me to update on finding a tow truck and I mentioned that we were waiting at the Wendys but the driver should call me . Shortly after that, the friend arrived and took me back to the Bus. The AAA lady called during that drive, and I told her I was going back to the Bus to wait for the driver.

Something happened that there was a miscommunication and the driver thought I was needing to be picked up at Wendy's! And my phone number had been passed to him had two digits transposed, so he couldn't call me. I was about ready to try to call AAA to figure out what was going on when I saw the truck go on down (and he honked when he saw the Bus) to the next exit to come get me. He'd been at the Wendy's for about a half hour trying to call me, and decided to come try to find me.

So now we're at the friend's house. Trying to decide how to get the Bus (and us!) back to Kansas. My preference is it wouldn't be stuck in the friend's driveway for a long time... Thinking the quickest option may be to rent a U-Haul and flat trailer to get it back. But we're not sure if the baby/car seat combo will work well in the cab of one of those trucks. Can't find a place that would rent a pickup and allow towing and also allow one-way. If we determine that the car seat won't work safely in the U-Haul, I'll probably drive and Katherine and Silas will fly. I did put up a quote request on U-Ship but I am not optimistic that'll end up working out.

And that gets you all up to date on this ill-fated road trip. My trip to Wisconsin a month ago was nearly problem-free. This one has been problem-full!

But, nobody died. It could be much much worse.
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[vwwestyman]

[vwwestyman]

[vwwestyman]

I just wanted to say, before the trip I squirted a little lube into the ports on the door hinge, and flushed out all of the dirt and junk from the lower track. And so the sliding door works really well right now.

Now that I've written that, it might fall off or something.
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[skills@eurocarsplus]

man, sorry for the troubles.

WTF are the chances of getting into a truck with a kid diddler and a kid

goddam bro, you are gonna tell your son some wild stories. next you'll run into a show curtain ring salesman and going the wrong way in a lebaron convertible

if you need anything let me know. i'd happily paypal you a few bux just for the story alone

anyway, back to diesels....

yea, i get the appeal. i was running mine on home heating oil when it was .60/gal.

drove the piss out of that old jetta. once i was on head gasket #2 due to oil intermix that was it. she was tired anyway. played briefly with vw's current offerings and meh... juice wasn't worth the squeeze anymore.

i got out of all the diesels at the right time. i made a bucket of $$ selling off all that shit in the grease car phase when everyone had a hot nut to waste even more time and money running on grease.

other than the fleet of ag equipment i'm all set. even at that once they got into tier 1 shit i made the decision i'll keep the old girls going
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[vwwestyman]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

'you're going the wrong way!'

this joker wants to race

you don't need me. you're smart enough to pull off a subaru swap, no doubt. i have faith in ya
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[TDCTDI]

It’s already a TDI, stuff another back in. Coolant & smoke indicates more of an overheat scenario. It sounds like the failure was due to something that was not quite sorted correctly.


When gas prices hit $5+, I had just gotten a TDI cheap & tossed a transmission in it. That car had a stage three tune & would pound the shit out of all the newest sports car offerings & made the Fast & Furious crowd even madder when they got coal rolled, once I got in front of them at WOT, they had to give up because they couldn’t see. And I still got 50+ MPG.


While everyone else was collecting veggie oil & converting their cars to run it straight, or worse yet, trying to make biodiesel out of it, I bought a centrifuge & ran used ATF. I could run it straight, mix it with diesel if needed on a long trip (but with 1,300 mile cruise range, that rarely happened.), or I found that I could run up to 50% used motor oil in a tank of diesel before it started burning too blue, it still wasn’t as bad as a 100,000 mile Mitsubishi or Caravan off the line.


All in all, I probably laid down 250,000 miles on free fuel & I plan to keep on the with the new beast.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[Abscate]

Blown engine, raining, bad phone number , fire ants

Rest of the year is looking up, Dave!!
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.ssS!

[cmonSTART]

oof! Sorry to hear about your trouble - glad mom and the kiddo are all OK!
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'78 Bus 2.0FI
de K1IGS